ARTICLES ABOUT INDIVIDUAL MANDATE BY DATE - PAGE 3

Sometimes our elected officials operate on such a high intellectual plane that their message can get lost. Take, for example, the debate over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law in the wake of theU.S. Supreme Court's declaration that the law is constitutional. To the untrained ear, the partisan bickering has been cacophonous. But what our lawmakers and political pundits are actually doing is showing us the true path to better health. First, consider the evolution of the Obamacare kerfuffle.

WASHINGTON -- Conservative World is up at arms at the effrontery of its onetime hero, Chief Justice John Roberts, in casting his vote with the bloc of four liberal Supreme Court judges to save the heart of the despised "Obamacare." The rage dismisses out of hand Roberts' argument that the court, and inferentially its chief justice, has a special obligation to find a way "to save a statute from unconstitutionality" if there are legal grounds to do so. The statement was a rather remarkable but much-needed curtsy to the role of the legislative branch in the American system.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Support for Obama healthcare law rises after ruling WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Voter support for President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul has increased following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling upholding it, although majorities still oppose it, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday showed. Among all registered voters, support for the law rose to 48 percent in the online survey conducted after Thursday's ruling, up from 43 percent before the court decision.

Washington -- Chief Justice John Roberts, in partnering with the Supreme Court's four liberal judges to preserve the bulk of President Obama's health care act, not only handed Obama a victory. He also rescued himself and the court from a shroud of partisanship built up from earlier decisions. Roberts' surprise role in salvaging the controversial individual mandate financing scheme, and particularly his legal justification for so voting, demonstrated a thoughtful and ideology-free leadership the court needed.

WASHINGTON -- In the twinkling of an eye, the Supreme Court's surprising decision to uphold the bulk of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has dramatically helped President Obama in the continuing fight over it in the 2012 presidential election. Instead of having to absorb a feared rejection of the law on which he spent more than the first year of his presidency achieving, including its controversial individual mandate on Americans to buy health insurance, Obama been thrown a lifeline by the unexpected acquiescence of Chief Justice John Roberts.

During the confirmation hearings for his nomination to be chief justice of the United States, John Roberts said, "Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them. " What Roberts offered was a picture of judicial restraint and caution. When one senator expressed the fear he would be a conservative ideologue, the nominee referred to the opinions he had written as an appeals court judge: "I don't think you can read those opinions and say that these are the opinions of an ideologue.

So the Supreme Court has upheld the individual mandate after striking down most of the Arizona immigration law. This has truly been an historical week. Never before has more power been taken from the states and the people and transferred to Washington in a single week. On Monday the court said that states cannot legislate in areas where the federal government legislates, and given how the federal government legislates on just about every issue, this means the states can legislate in very few areas indeed.

Back when President Obama's health care reform was making its way through Congress, there was a lot of discussion of its various provisions. But since it became law, its actual content has been lost in the partisan warfare. Republican voters are strongly against it. But aside from the individual mandate, it's not clear they really know what it does. This became apparent to me when former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was campaigning with Mitt Romney and asked his audience, "Have you had enough of Obamacare?"

* Republicans to mix repeal push with healthcare "principles" * Democrats could attack court majority * Battle looms over preexisting conditions By David Morgan WASHINGTON, June 19 (Reuters) - Eric Cantor pulls no punches about what Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives will do to "Obamacare" if the Supreme Court leaves any of President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law intact. "We're going to take a bill to the floor that calls for the total repeal of Obamacare," the House majority leader said in a nationally televised press conference this month.

By Lewis Krauskopf June 18 (Reuters) - The recently retired head of health insurer Aetna Inc said he had withdrawn his support for the component at the heart of the U.S. healthcare overhaul law, known as the individual mandate, and predicted it would not be upheld. The Supreme Court is expected to rule before the end of the month on the law, championed by U.S. President Barack Obama and designed to expand coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans.